Field
The present disclosure generally relates to optical connectors and, more particularly, to optical connectors that optically couple components of a circuit board to a components of a backplane.
Technical Background
Benefits of devices having optical waveguides include extremely wide bandwidth and low noise operation. Because of these advantages, devices with optical waveguides are increasingly being used for a variety of applications, including but not limited to broadband voice, video, and data transmission. For example, fiber optic networks employing optical fiber are being developed and used to deliver voice, video, and data transmissions to subscribers over both private and public networks.
For example, optical fiber may be employed in data distribution centers or central offices for telecommunications and storage systems applications. These applications include, but are not limited to, server farms, such as for web page accesses, and remote storage equipment, such as for backup storage purposes, as examples. However, today's networks still use transceivers mounted at the edge of printed circuit boards for converting optical signals to electrical signals and vice-versa such as the electrically-based server blades in communications network. As bandwidth demands continue to increase there will be a need for reducing the length of the electrical traces carrying the high-speed signals by positioning the transceivers “on-board” so that the transceivers performing the optical/electrical conversion are closer to the processor integrated circuit. As such, there will be a need to provide optical traces (i.e., optical waveguides) in circuit boards for transporting the optical signals between the edge of the board and the transceivers. To provide for efficient management and organization of equipment such as server blades, they are organized and mounted in equipment racks. By way of explanation, equipment racks comprise of rails extending in a vertical direction and spaced a distance apart to support a plurality of modular housings disposed between the rails in vertical space. The modular housings are configured to support information processing devices, such as computer servers, data storage devices, and/or other circuits in the form of server blades, sometimes referred to as cards.
Conventional server blades are formed as conventional printed circuit board (PCB) server blades or cards. Conventional server blades or cards contain electrical traces for interconnecting electrical components mounted on the server blade or card. As bandwidth demands increase there is an unresolved need to provide server blades or cards that can transmit high-speed optical signals. However, optical signals require an optical connection between the optical components associated with the printed circuit board and the optical components associated with the backplane. Such optical connections may be costly due to the precise alignment requirements needed between the mated optical connectors. In some cases, costly internal optical jumpers are required to facilitate board-side optical connections. These internal optical jumpers not only add cost, but also introduce optical loss.
Accordingly, alternative optical connectors that eliminate optical jumpers in printed circuit board to backplane optical connections are desired.